[newsio]

Ditto for both Boston newspapers. It can literally ruin your day reading some of the comments below even mundane articles.

The NYT has a good approach: Approve only those comments which present reasoned arguments in a semi-intelligent way. There's a lag, but the comment threads are excellent reading.

Another approach: Force everyone to use real names when leaving a comment. I am not sure how that would work, but the trolling would drop away if real identities were tied to people's words.

Unfortunately, it might also inhibit people from commenting, too. Anonymity is a great way to say what you actually think.

[andyking]

A radio industry forum did that a few years ago - fed up of the vitriol being spouted anonymously, the forum owner closed it down and reopened it with a verified real name policy. You have to register with an employer email address and the forums are invisible to all but the registered users.

The result? The forum is quiet and discussions very boring - for a start, Google isn't picking up the topics to pull in new users and besides, no one wants to say what they think when they know either their current boss or a potential employer is reading it under their real name. (The British radio industry is a small place.)

Worse still, you get the odd threat. "I know such-and-such a radio boss and you're never going to be employed again if you keep posting that station X is pants." It's just not a pleasant atmosphere.

[carbon179]

I just had to register on HN to say how much I completely agree with this statement:

"Ditto for both Boston newspapers. It can literally ruin your day reading some of the comments below even mundane articles."

[awa]

Welcome to HN! Please take some time to go through the guidelines: http://ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html. And hit upvote when you agree with somebody's comment.